


Helluva Way To Spend It

by monstergabe (aproposity)



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: M/M, this became a love letter to lewis nixon’s smile when I wasn’t looking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-19 02:16:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3592554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aproposity/pseuds/monstergabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fic Prompt: "It could be worse."</p>
<p>Dick and Nix spend New Year's Eve together in the Ardennes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Helluva Way To Spend It

The Germans are singing out of tune.

Their voices travel through the darkness and fog as if the trees themselves are singing, ghosts and forest spirits, bedtime stories heard in childhood that infect the imagination in Bastogne. It’s undoubtedly a song appropriate for the occasion, but the bone-weariness of the German troops changes it into something more melancholic. There’s no such singing from the Americans. Huddled together in foxholes for warmth, swapping stories and anything they can spare to share with the man next to them, the New Year’s Eve atmosphere is subdued – as close to relaxed as it ever gets in the Bois Jacques.

Sitting in his own foxhole, knees drawn up tight and cradling a cup of coffee between gloved hands, Dick thinks it can’t be doing much for German morale. Hands trembling from the cold, he draws the coffee to his mouth and takes a tentative sip. It’s lukewarm and disgusting, thickened to a soup to trick the stomach into thinking it’s something more substantial than water. Caffeine is a waste in the Bois Jacques, the chill and paranoia keeping everyone’s eyes wide open and fixed unerringly on the few feet ahead where the fog swallows the trees. Still, coffee is the only welcome warmth one can find without risking a fire, and Dick is grateful for what he can get.

He tips his head back and closes his eyes, ignoring the way his helmet digs uncomfortably into the back of his neck. Instead, Dick thinks of Lancaster, of the sun baking the earth and turning fields of wheat from yellow to burnished gold, the sky reflecting across the surface of the lake like glass. Of his mother humming along to the radio as she kneads bread dough in front of the open window, his sister slumbering on the porch seat with a book spread open over her stomach. His father, bone-weary from a long day at the electrical company and smelling of reams of paperwork, stooping in the doorway to scratch their rambunctious border collie behind the ear. The homesickness dogging him through Europe had previously resembled an itch just under his skin, persistent in the quiet moments between orders but easily put out of mind. Tonight, it _aches_.

The crunch of snow and dirt crumbling around the fringes of the foxhole starts Dick out of the stupor he’d accidentally fallen into, eyes flashing open, but before he can snatch up his rifle Nix is half-sliding, half-falling into a crouch next to him. Dick briefly chastises himself; it’s not uncommon these days for either side to stumble into an enemy foxhole while looking for a quiet place to piss. They trade weary smiles as Nix lowers himself to a sitting position next to Dick, his legs stretched out in front of him. His helmet is listing to one side, his cheeks burnt red under his beard from the cold. He looks about as exhausted as Dick feels.

“The Krauts are out of tune,” Nix says by way of hello, pulling his helmet off and throwing it at his feet. Dick nods in agreement as he hands over the coffee, the last they’ll have until morning.

Nix’s gloves follow his helmet, yanking them off with his teeth. He takes the cup with a muttered ‘thanks’, gratefully wrapping his hands around battered tin. Dick watches him as he tilts his head forward, his face catching the scant bit of heat curling in thin tendrils and quickly lost to the frozen air. He sniffs, exhaling noisily through his mouth; he sounds congested, but nearly all of them are sniffling already and a cold is the least of everyone’s worries. Dick decides not to worry too much about it unless it moves to his chest.

One of the Germans hits a particularly high note, loud and jarring like the beginnings of a shell whistling across the line, and they both wince in unison. “Think you could get them to sing something else?”

“I don’t think my duties as intelligence officer extend that far,” Nix throws back at him with a smile, the only source of warmth Dick’s found in the whole forest that the freezing air cannot snatch away. Nix takes a mouthful of coffee, making a face as he swallows. “Christ, that’s disgusting.”

“How’d the rounds go?”

“As well as to be expected when you’re checking on a bunch of guys freezing their asses off an ocean away from home on New Year’s Eve.”

“So we’re looking at a mass revolt then?”

“Well, close enough. I didn’t get any offers to share a cigarette and a snow cone if that’s what you mean.”

Dick huffs, the closest thing he ever gets to a laugh these days. The sound scratches uncomfortably in his throat and nose, and Nix hands the coffee back to him.

“Here, I’ve already got something that’ll warm me up better than that shit.”

Nix unbuttons his jacket just enough to pull the all-too-familiar flask out of his inside pocket. Dick can already feel his mouth tugging into well-worn lines of disapproval as Nix unscrews the cap and takes a long draught, tipping his head back to rest against the dirt wall at their backs. He watches a shudder travel through Nix’s body as the alcohol burns its way through him, offering heat that isn’t really heat at all, the comforting buzz that dulls the sharpness of winter.

“And did you offer any of the men something to warm themselves up?” Dick asks, just barely keeping the bite out of his voice.

“God no, I’m rationing this stuff as it is.” Nix glances over at him with the same smile, the same warmth, but Dick can’t school his features back into a neutral expression fast enough and that smile drops into a half-scowl in response. “Oh come on, Dick, everyone’s entitled to a toast on New Year’s.”

Dick doesn’t know how to reply amicably to that. He opts for silence instead of the words he can feel pressing disagreeably against the roof of his mouth, about how he’s seen Nix nipping ‘toasts’ throughout the entirety of December, seen him stumbling crookedly through the skeletal undergrowth on those evenings where the line is so quiet it feels like they’re just a bunch of kids hiding in Bastogne’s back garden. Dick can’t even remember the last time Nix had playfully offered him a sip before taking a drink himself, as if Dick will, against all probability, say yes and Nix will have to part with a single mouthful.

If it were any other time perhaps Dick would’ve commented, would’ve made his concerns known. But there is little comfort to be found for any of them, rooted in the frozen earth as they are, and all they can do is turn to each other. It’s easier for the men – even as their numbers shrink after each assault, there are still an abundance of friends to turn to. Dick does not have that luxury. He spends enough time cutting his face to ribbons while shaving as an example to them all; he wouldn’t jeopardize the tenuous morale they have by exposing vulnerability in front of any man who’s obligated to call him ‘sir’. He knows if he wobbles – if that haunted look seeps into his eyes with the frost and the tremors in his hands can no longer be warded off by tucking them behind his knees – then he’ll need Lew to take him outside himself, to bring him back with his kind eyes and warm smile. To lose Nix would be to inevitably lose himself, and that cannot happen here, in the depths of a Belgian forest where his men need him most. It cannot.

Nix takes another drink, smaller this time, and nudges Dick with his shoulder. “Hey, I almost forgot. It’s just gone midnight.”

There is a moment where they both stare at each other expectantly as if they’re waiting for something to happen, but Dick can’t quite work out what that _something_ is. The foxhole is barely big enough for two people but they’ve dug in together before without it being as stifling as it feels in this moment. Nix is looking more at his mouth than his eyes, glancing up every so often and then back down, as if it’s a struggle to keep them there. Dick thinks back to all the New Year celebrations he’s spent with family and friends, of the clock striking midnight and everyone standing in the living room embracing. He remembers politely bestowing a kiss upon the cheek of the young lady invited along as his date for the evening, and the world seems to tip incrementally on its axis.

And then Nix is awkwardly sticking his hand out, his grin lopsided and nervous, and everything slips back into focus: the cold, the singing, the whole godforsaken war. “Happy New Year, Dick.”

Dick swallows down confused disappointment. Whatever course they seemed to be on, Nix has managed to derail it; he’s no longer staring at his mouth, and Dick has remembered how to breathe. He forces a stiff, half-frozen smile that feels like his face is about to crack in half and takes Nix’s hand, his fingers like ice but his palms strangely damp with sweat.

“Happy New Year, Lewis.”

It takes them both by surprise; Dick doesn’t think he’s ever called Nix by his full name once in the time he’s known him. Nix’s grin is more like a grimace as he finally, finally looks away. He leans forward instead, groping blindly around in the dark and dragging a worn blanket out of the bundle of supplies he’s managed to smuggle away. It’s barely big enough for both of them but he throws half over Dick regardless. He moves to get himself comfortable over his own half, jostling Dick a few times and making the coffee tip precariously. With a few biting remarks thrown back and forth for good measure – “With those elbows you’ll never have to worry about losing your bayonet.” “Quit complaining, this foxhole is small enough as it is.” – Nix is finally settled, their bodies pressed together in a long line from shoulder to ankle.

He feels like a furnace even through his clothes and Dick presses back gratefully; he knows Nix runs hot, has seen how he’s dealt with the winter climate with a surprising lack of complaint – at least for Nix, anyway – whereas Dick struggles to speak through chattering teeth on the colder days. He rationalizes that this is only common sense, the conservation of body heat can make all the difference, and then his already sluggish brain threatens to stall altogether when Nix’s head drops heavily onto his shoulder, his body tucking itself against his side like it’s the most natural thing in the world, like it _belongs_.

Dick stares straight ahead, not daring to seek out Nix’s face in the dark. The foxhole is gloomy and he can’t see the opposite wall, Nix a heavy weight on his shoulder that refuses to be ignored. Nix had always been free in his touches before, but there was always that careful, unspoken distance between them. A touch of the hand here or there, that was fine. But having Nix close in this way, with his hair tickling the spot behind his ear and his hip digging into Dick’s own through their uniform, seems overindulgent, almost forbidden. He’s far more comforting than a cup of coffee, and Dick’s throat works to swallow.

The Germans have stopped and the forest seems to be holding its breath along with Dick, long used to the fact that nothing one side does ever goes without retaliation from the other in this stand-off. The moment stretches out until a thin, quavering American voice – not one Dick can recognise, it must be a replacement – takes up the first few lines of Auld Lang Syne. Shaking from nerves or the cold, Dick can’t tell, but the voice is swiftly joined by others: Skip, Luz – even Guarnere – all singing softly into the night.

“Helluva way to spend it, huh?” Dick manages, but the words inexplicably emerge as a whisper. Nix turns his head to press his face against Dick’s neck, his nose nudging under his scarf, shockingly cold.

“Could be worse,” Nix mumbles against his skin, barely heard and slurring with sleep. It doesn’t matter; Dick can hear the words hanging unsaid between them, unbearably loud over acres of snow and blasted trees: _At least we’re alive._

It’s a thought that preys on every soldier’s mind in Bastogne, Dick is certain, but the knowledge that it’s dogging Nix as much as anyone else causes an ugly sensation to settle like a stone in the pit of his stomach. He wants to say something, but any kind of reassurance seems empty. As Nix’s breathing starts to even out, Dick considers the murky future in which getting Nix out of this war would finally be possible. The thought of Nix being one of those men spilled out in pieces on a dirty canvas stretcher sets his teeth on edge. He grips his coffee cup hard enough that the tin bites into his fingers through his gloves.

He lets go of that flare of anger when Nix’s next exhale comes out as a muffled snore. The knowledge that Nix is asleep makes him bold, makes it seem safer somehow to rest his head on Nix’s and allow his eyes to slip closed. The chorus of off-tune American voices sweeps through the foxhole unimpeded, entirely new yet achingly familiar, and something hard and tightly knotted that’s been taking up space in Dick’s chest since D-Day begins to slowly unravel.

Dick jerks awake at the sound of the coffee cup clattering to the ground, its contents seeping into the cracked earth. He should know better, he chastises himself. The New Year might lull both sides of the line into melancholic civility, but that’s precisely why it remains the perfect time for a shelling. The men are still singing, though, trailing off from the last verse into a lazy final chorus, so he can only have been asleep for a few minutes.

Nix on the other hand is showing no signs of waking, quietly snuffle-snoring against his neck, an arm loosely thrown around his middle where it hadn’t been before. Dick doesn’t think he could bear to wake him even if he wanted to and besides, sharing a foxhole means that only one of them needs to be awake anyway.

Nix _is_ starting to become an uncomfortable weight on his arm, though. He lifts it to wrap around Nix’s shoulders instead, and the movement causes Nix to slip further against him. Dick’s arm tightens around him to keep him steady, taking a shuddering breath as Nix’s open mouth presses against the hinge of his jaw, damp and almost unbearably hot.

To have Nix here, so vulnerable yet so _alive_ sends a flash of panic through Dick as the image of Nix blown apart and on his way to an aid station intrudes yet again and the thought is so accidental, so startling, that before he can stop himself he presses his mouth to the top of Nix’s head. Nix’s hair tickles his nose and he lifts his hand to smooth it back, his eyes squeezed shut to ward off anything worse.

Lewis Nixon is not going to die. He won’t allow it.

As the Bois Jacques reclaims its silence Dick glances up at the night sky. The moon is a pale disc, unimpeded by cloud cover yet caught in the tangled fingers of the trees. He thinks back to the clear summer skies of Lancaster, recalling the pier stretching out across the water of the lake and the childhood spent thundering down it with the sun beating at his bare back; the shock of impact, the welcome sensation of coming up for air.

In his mind’s eye, however, it’s not his younger self that’s standing at the pier’s edge, pale and sun-freckled and untouched by this miserable war. Instead, it’s Lew, his uniform hanging off sloping shoulders and his helmet listing to one side, freshly shaven with a smile on his face that outshines the sun but never burns.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If anyone would like to prompt me something from [this](http://gentlewinters.tumblr.com/post/113012514043/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) list, please drop me a line in my [askbox](http://gentlewinters.tumblr.com/ask). Please note: I will only be taking prompts related to Band of Brothers.


End file.
